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What is real? We clear up this problem in a couple of pages…

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What do you think is ‘real’?

Traditionally what we consider to be real would be tangible objects, things that we can touch, feel, taste and smell. We have also, through science been able to prove that other things are real, whether we can see them or not. Feelings and emotions are real, we feel real sadness when our cat dies and we feel real pain when we hit our finger with a hammer.

Have you ever wondered why you feel pain when you hit your hand with a hammer, have you ever wondered WHY you get tired and need to sleep. If we don’t sleep we have a very real feeling of tiredness and we don’t function well, except for Margaret Thatcher who only slept for 4 hours every night and did quite well. If we didn’t feel pain when we hit our finger we might hit it again, and again until it is a just blood pulp on the floor. These ‘real’ feelings that our body presents to our brain and really there to help us function in the real world.

However, with advances in technology mankind has pushed the boundaries into new ‘virtual worlds’ these are worlds that don’t actually exist physically, but are certainly tangible. I’m not just talking about sophisticated things like Second Life and OCULUS Rift, virtual worlds go back to before computers, think of people playing Role Playing Games back in the 60’s they would create characters (Avatars) that could persist between games. Although obviously in that case the characters and the world that they live in would only be ‘alive’ when a game is in play.

With the proliferation of computers, we have seen persistent virtual worlds start to appear, we have gone from MUD in the early 80s through to worlds like Second Life. Second life in particular has somewhat blurred the question of what is real, within Second Life there is real money, a property market, and even a stock exchange, all very real to the people that frequent the world, however in the event of a power cut, BOOM its all gone. No matter how ‘Real’ Second Life becomes it still relies on this world. I wonder what this world relies on?

What is real? Who knows?

Real – you can see it and its there

Transparent – you cant see but its there

Virtual – you can see but it isn’t there

What do you think might be two positive and two negative aspects of the HoloLens if it was to be widely used?

HoloLens is a wonderful idea. There are a lot of positives that are possible, just watch the Microsoft promo video for it. Gaming, design, exploration, there are so many wonderful applications, it is augmented reality as I have always imagined it would be. Hololens differs from Oculus Rift in a critical way, OR creates a virtual world for us to visit, whether that’s Second Life or a game, however we are cut off from the real world when we are in this virtual world. There may be other people ‘plugged into’ the same world through their own OR headsets, but they too are cut off from the real world. HoloLens is attemptng to augment the real world with holograms

Do you th

ink the oculus rift will have a life outside of games?

Although there are obvious and massive opportunities for RIFT in the world of gaming, there is definitely a place for the it in other fields. The fact that Facebook bought RIFT for $2 billion in 2014 is proof enough that some big hitters think this is

Post a link to (or embed) an online video that demonstrates the use of one of these technologies and explain briefly what it is and why you have chosen it.

This is a link to a really interesting TED talk about the hololens. It’s really slick and exciting and somewhat blows your mind with the possibilities of what is to come, but really it’s an ad for Microsoft and their upcoming technology. It would be interesting to know how much of the stuff we see here is real ‘in game footage’ as it were, and how much has been specially prepared for this one off presentation. Needless to say it is incredibly impressive and this type of tech is not far away now, genuinely exciting